An Interpretation Of Empathy In Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

"What is man anyhow? What am I? What are you?" asks Whitman. Who we are, what our purpose is and what the meaning of life is are all mysteries that man has tried to solve from his earliest history. Whitman and Emerson explore these ideas in their works, Song of Myself and Self Reliance. Whitman, an American poet, and Emerson, an American philosopher, take different approaches in their search for self-discovery, yet within their solutions, many parallels can be found.

“Song of Myself” is an attempt by Walt Whitman to become the “American poet” as described by Ralph Waldo Emerson; he attempts to be “[T]he sayer, the namer, and [representative] of beauty” (Emerson 1182). Whitman wants to speak to and for America. Whitman does not explicitly choose sides on the slavery debate that was raging at the time of his writing, but he does express the equality of all people, regardless of gender and race in “Song of Myself”. While Whitman’s writing can be read as neutral but “Song of Myself” is, in reality, very anti-slavery and pro-equality.

The poem “Song of Myself” expresses Walt Whitman's views about himself, celebrating his life, expressing views on school, and what he hopes, using natural expressions to express these ideas. Whitman believes that his life and how he leads it demonstrate a very calm life that can be attributed to his surroundings in the present and the past, which can be seen in the lines “I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.\ My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,\ born here

Imagery is present throughout Walt Whitman’s Song Of Myself (-----). Whitman is able to draw the reader into the text and ground the abstract ideas back to the readers by appealing to a range of senses. Whitman also uses visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory to imagery give a sense of reality to the setting.

Whitman begins by creating a contradictory image of himself. On one hand he relays an egotistical representation by alluding that he is the center of the universe, "a kosmos, of Manhattan the son," almost a deistic type of character. Whitman also describes himself as not being above any one person, woman or man, an obvious contradiction to his previous representation. His God-like persona is depicted in human terms, physical qualities that all humans possess. Whitman creates this contradiction to show his belief that he is everything, but is only this way because everything is a part of him. He represents himself as part of a whole&emdash;nature, mankind, and the universe are all a part of him. By being everything in nature and nature being a part of him, Whitman has the power to become the voice of nature as a whole. He speaks for nature and mankind when they do not possess the power to do so. Whitman is the voice of all.

“Song of Myself” is one of Walt Whitman’s most popular poems. “Song of Myself” is written in free verse, which gives the poem a more organic feel. The poem is centered strongly around nature. Through nature, Whitman compares universality and individuality and their importance to the self. Whitman describes that all individuals are connected and are of one.

The creation of an acceptable persona is essential to Whitman's poetic program. In "Song of Myself" this is

Walt Whitman was an 19th century American poet and author of “Song of Myself,” a 52-section poem that conveys a lot of the basic premises and themes of transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is the belief in the power of the individual, no one is better then anyone else, everything is interconnected, and the power and value of nature. It was a reaction towards rationalism that resulted in the development of transcendentalism. Walt Whitman shared this values and beliefs and is notable in a lot of his work, even more so in his poem “Song of Myself,” where he opens-up about his opinions with one’s self, nature, and the universe. Another theme of Transcendentalism believes that Authors should be equine and create new literature, just as Whitman have his own style of writing that made him equine and original. Throughout “Song of Myself” Whitman conveys the point of view of a transcendentalist as his constantly makes the connection connecting nature, humans, and spiritual. The poem tells us about Whitman, almost to the point that it was his form of writing his autobiography, but even more so it expresses his self-satisfaction is all that mattered and personally didn’t care if you joined in his-self celebration or not regardless he was going to celebrate.

Whitman writes that he, as a poet, represents the body and that he is "the poet of the soul" (Lauter, p.2759). In other words, his poetry represents the body and the soul, but since we are more interested in the soul, we will focus on that. Remember, also, Whitman's poetry is often contradictory. He says in the following lines, "The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me" (Lauter, p. 2759). I believe what Whitman is saying here is that his soul includes both pleasure and pain. But, in the very next line he says that he has brought pleasure on himself and the pain he feels he "translates into a new tongue" (Lauter, p. 2759). The tongue refers to here is his poetry. To tie this altogether, his poetry represents the soul, particularly pleasure and pain. He takes the pain from his soul and translates it into poetry. Therefore, his poetry represents his soul.

A system in which a person has a heard voice among the state is considered a democracy. In addition, that person has the right to vote in order to voice his/her opinion. An individual has the ability to achieve his/her personal spiritual state without being told what to believe in. In the transcendentalist work, “Song of Myself,” Whitman voiced his thoughts even though he would contradict himself. His life was lived in a democratic way, which appealed to those around him. Whitman’s democratic view determined his set of beliefs through his own intuition on life.

On this verse, we can see how Whitman tries to connect to mind, body, spirit and nature. In “Song of Myself” Whitman attempted to change the meaning of American poetry. I described identity issues that pertain to him, but that the audience was able to identify with. Whitman, opened the door to

In his first anthology of poems entitled “Song of Myself”, Walt Whitman reveals some of his views on democracy through the use of symbolism and free verse poetry. His use of symbolism and free verse poetry creates indeterminacy, giving the reader hints rather than answers about the nature of the poem. In the sixth part of “Song of Myself”, a child asks the narrator of the poem, “What is the grass?” (Whitman). Instead of simply giving an answer, the narrator cannot make up his mind, and stumbles on how to explain the grass to the child. Through the use of specific symbolisms, Whitman, as the narrator, explicates his views while remaining under the façade of explaining grass to the child. The views Whitman conveys remain indeterminate and

Walt Whitman, a civil war nurse was a self-taught poet in the 1800s. Whitman is known for using lists, anaphora, free verse, and other literary devices in his poems. In his works, he focuses on American workers, diversity, transcendent approaches to nature, and individualism. “Song of Myself,” a poem written by Whitman, explores themes of nature, sex, democracy, and spirituality. Whitman uses nature to fuel his creativity in using grass as a symbol of comparison to life by using imagery, metaphors, and analogies.

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself / and what I shall assume you shall assume” (Whitman 1-2). These lines not only open up the beginning of one the best poems of the American Romantic period, but they also represent a prominent theme of one of this period’s best poet, Walt Whitman. In Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, Whitman deals with his time period’s most prominent theme of democracy. Whitman tells readers that they must not only observe the democratic life but they must become one with it. As Whitman states, “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” (3). Democracy provides a connection with all people. It is as if Joseph Stella felt this connection and decided to depict it in his collection of paintings entitled “Americans in the Rough.” The individual is of no greater or lesser worth than anyone else. Beatrice Marovich states that, “It is a song for fellow Americans, about the American body politic” (349). An analysis of Song of Myself portrays that understanding and becoming one with democracy through political collectivity essentially sets the stage for the American democratic self. Joseph Stella does a great job of interpreting and depicting Whitman’s ideals of democracy through his illustrations representing every facet of an American democratic life.

It was a deep poem, because it opened up his perspective on life, and his perspective is unique. In a way he spoke of his own religion, and preached that everyone meets their maker, but everyone is reincarnated as a blade of grass, and he spoke of showing respect for the blades of grass because they could have been part of his ancestory or a person of importance to another person. In general, he wanted people to show appreciation for the world because many generations walked this planet before he did. He wanted people to respect those who have since been deceased, no matter their race, because death is inevitable, and they will soon face it. Whitman’s writing style carried over into this canto, his blank verse style of poetry, although it was not flashy, it made him sound educated and well spoken, but hard to follow. He also revealed that he did believe in a god when he spoke of God’s handkerchief was a gift for Earth, through a